Proverbs 15:7

Proverbs 15:1 belongs to the long collection of Solomon’s sayings that runs through Proverbs 10:1–22:16, where most proverbs are two lines set against each other. Here the two lines set two replies side by side and show where each one leads: “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

The word for soft, rak, means tender, gentle or mild, and the answer, maʻăneh, is simply a reply. So the proverb is about what we say back when someone is already angry with us. A soft answer is gentle in its words, its tone and the intention behind them, a reply that aims to calm and reconcile. The anger it meets is chêmâh, a word for heat, rage and even poison, which comes from a verb meaning to be hot. The verb “turneth away”, shûwb, means to turn back or to make something retreat, so the gentle reply sends the heat back where it came from.

“Grievous” is ʻetseb, a word for pain and hurt, so grievous words (dâbâr ʻetseb) are painful words, harsh, accusing and cutting. They “stir up” anger, and the verb ʻâlâh means to make something go up or rise. The anger in this line is ʼaph, a common word for anger. A painful word raises the temper it meets, because the person who hears it feels attacked and wants to answer in kind, and so one hard word leads to the next.

In Israel a dispute handled badly could grow into a feud between families, and the person who could calm a quarrel was prized as wise and self-controlled. Another proverb shows how strong gentleness is: “a soft tongue breaketh the bone” (Proverbs 25:15). Later in this chapter we read, “A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife” (Proverbs 15:18). James gives the same counsel: “let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19).

Scripture gives a real case of the second line. When the people asked Rehoboam to lighten their burden, “the king answered the people roughly” (1 Kings 12:13), and Israel’s reply was to throw off the house of David (1 Kings 12:16). A hard answer from a king cost him most of his kingdom.

The gentleness asked of us reflects who God is. He is righteous in his anger against sin, and he is also “slow to anger, and of great mercy” (Psalm 145:8). A soft answer given under provocation takes humility and self-control, and Paul names meekness and temperance among the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). Our speech is to be “alway with grace, seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6), and Paul asks that only what is “good to the use of edifying” come out of our mouths (Ephesians 4:29).

Verses 2 and 7 make the same contrast from two sides: “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness,” and “The lips of the wise disperse knowledge: but the heart of the foolish doeth not so.”

The tongue, lâshôwn, is the organ itself, and it also stands for speech and language. The wise (châkâm) are those with practical, moral and spiritual discernment, and in Israel they often served as counsellors and teachers. Teaching, promises, blessings and legal judgments were mostly spoken aloud, so the ability to speak well marked a person of character. The verb behind “useth aright”, yâṭab, means to be good or to do well, so the wise tongue does well with knowledge and makes it good for the hearer. That knowledge, daʻath, includes skill and discernment, the understanding of how to live rightly before God. Another proverb pictures such speech: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).

The fools of verse 2 are kᵉçîyl, a common word for a fool, which Strong’s explains as stupid or silly. In Proverbs the fool’s trouble lies in his character and his refusal to learn. His mouth, peh, “poureth out”, nâbaʻ, a verb for water gushing from a spring, and what gushes out is ʼivveleth, folly. The wise weigh what they say, and the fool’s words come out unchecked. Proverbs says elsewhere that some speak like the piercings of a sword, “but the tongue of the wise is health” (Proverbs 12:18), and Jesus warned that we will give account of every idle word (Matthew 12:36–37).

Verse 7 shows where speech comes from. The wise “disperse” knowledge, and the verb zârâh means to scatter, spread or winnow, as grain is tossed into the wind. The wise spread what they know widely, so that others gain from it. The second line sets the heart of the foolish against the lips of the wise. The heart, lêb, is the whole inner person in Hebrew thought: mind, will, feelings and conscience. The fool’s heart lacks the wisdom to share, or the will to share what it has, and so it “doeth not so”.

Both verses rest on a truth Jesus put plainly: “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34). Proverbs says it too. “The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth” (Proverbs 16:23), “The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom” (Proverbs 10:31), and the heart is to be kept with all diligence, “for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Wise speech begins with a heart filled with God’s wisdom, and his word is the lamp that lights the way (Psalm 119:105). Dispersing knowledge looks like sound counsel to a friend facing a hard choice, a skill taught to a colleague, Scripture opened with another believer, or a clear word that brings understanding into confusion.

“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.” The word translated wholesome, marpêʼ, means a medicine or a cure, and it can also mean deliverance or calm. A wholesome tongue is a healing tongue, speech that restores, comforts and makes peace.

Such a tongue is “a tree of life” (ʻēṣ ḥayyîm). The phrase first appears in Eden (Genesis 2:9), and the tree of life appears again in the new creation (Revelation 22:2). Healing words give the people who hear them what that tree pictures: nourishment, growth and health. Moses set life and death before Israel and told them to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19), and Proverbs carries the same choice into speech: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21).

Perverseness, çeleph, means distortion or twisting, and figuratively viciousness. It is crooked speech, deceitful, malicious or corrupt. Such speech makes “a breach in the spirit”, a break or fracture. The spirit is rûwach, whose senses are wind, breath and spirit, and here it means the inner person. Twisted words wound the spirit of the one who hears them and damage the one who speaks them as well. Proverbs comes back to the power of the tongue again and again, in Proverbs 12 and Proverbs 18 above all, and this whole chapter, Proverbs 15, keeps returning to it.

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” Set among sayings about speech, this verse gives the reason they matter so much: every word and every deed is spoken and done before God.

His eyes, ʻayin, are a way of speaking about God in human terms, telling us that his awareness is perfect and complete. The name is Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, the personal covenant name of Israel’s God, so it is the living God who keeps faith with his people who sees all this. His eyes are “in every place”, and every place, situation and secret thought lies open to him. David asked where he could flee from God’s presence and found that the darkness and the light are both alike to him (Psalm 139:7–12). The LORD himself asks, “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?” (Jeremiah 23:24), and a psalm says that he looks from heaven on all the sons of men and considers all their works (Psalm 33:13–15).

The verb “beholding”, tsâphâh, means to lean forward and peer into the distance, and so to watch closely. God watches with attention and purpose. He sees “the evil and the good” (raʻ and ṭôwb), and by naming both ends the proverb takes in everything between them. He also tells the two apart, and that makes him the judge of right and wrong. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13), and he “will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6). The risen Christ tells the church at Thyatira that he searches the reins and hearts and gives to every one according to their works (Revelation 2:23). Knowing this is where the fear of the LORD begins (Proverbs 1:7), and the fear of the LORD leads to the humility that comes before honour (Proverbs 15:33).

“A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.” Much of Proverbs is written as a father teaching his son, as its opening chapter shows (Proverbs 1). In Israel the father, with the mother, had the main charge of teaching the children the ways of the LORD and the practical skills of life, and the law commanded honour for both parents (Exodus 20:12). His instruction, mûwçâr, took in teaching, discipline and correction, and reproof, tôwkêchâh, is the rebuke that points out what is wrong.

The fool here is ʼĕvîyl, the foolish man who lacks the fear of God and is unwilling to listen to advice. He “despiseth” his father’s teaching, and nâʼats means to scorn or treat with contempt. He looks down on the teaching as worthless and beneath him. The first chapter of Proverbs says this of fools in general: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7). Pride lies under such contempt, and “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

The one who “regardeth” reproof keeps it, and the verb behind it, shâmar, means to keep or guard. He listens without rushing to defend himself, weighs what was said, and changes what needs changing. That makes him “prudent”, ʻâram, a word that can mean crafty in a bad sense and here means sensible and shrewd in a good one. Prudence grows out of being teachable. “Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish” (Proverbs 12:1), and “rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee” (Proverbs 9:8). The father in Proverbs 4:1–4 hands on what his own father taught him, so wise instruction passes from one generation to the next. Behind every earthly father’s teaching stands the instruction of our Father in heaven, whose discipline, painful as it can be, is always for our good.

“In the house of the righteous is much treasure: but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble.” The house, bayith, meant the whole household in Israel: the family, the servants, the property and the wealth. Treasure such as grain, oil and precious metals was stored in the house itself, so “much treasure” in the house was a picture anyone could see. The word, chôçen, means wealth, riches or strength, and it carries a sense of security.

The wicked have revenues, tᵉbûwʼâh, their income from harvests, trade or dishonest gain, and with it comes trouble. The word behind “trouble”, ʻâkar, literally means to stir up water until it is muddy, and so to disturb or afflict. Ill-gotten gain muddies the life that holds it, with anxiety, guilt, fear of loss, quarrels or God’s judgment. “The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it” (Proverbs 10:22), and “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked” (Psalm 37:16). The very next verse turns to the sacrifice of the wicked (Proverbs 15:8).

These sayings find their fullest form in Jesus Christ. When he was reviled, he “reviled not again” (1 Peter 2:23), and from the cross he prayed for those who crucified him (Luke 23:34). When his accusers brought a woman to trap him, his quiet answer, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”, sent them away (John 8:7). He called the peacemakers blessed (Matthew 5:9).

He is the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1) and who was made flesh (John 1:14). He is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). His tongue was always wholesome. He came to preach deliverance to the captives (Luke 4:18), told a sinful woman, “Thy sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:48), promised that the truth would make us free (John 8:32), offered living water (John 4:10) and called himself the bread of life (John 6:35). His word stilled the wind and the sea (Mark 4:39), and Peter said to him, “thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). His teaching on the mountain (Matthew 5) is the lips of the wise dispersing knowledge. Perverse speech did its worst against him in the false accusations that brought him to the cross, and he answered with forgiveness, opening the way to the tree of life.

The eyes of the LORD were in him as well. He is God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16) and the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). He knew what was in man (John 2:25) and perceived the thoughts of those who questioned him (Luke 5:22). God has ordained him to be the judge of the quick and the dead (Acts 10:42), and he is also the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29), made sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). So the evil God sees is both judged and answered in him.

He is the Son who received his Father’s instruction perfectly. His meat was to do the will of him that sent him (John 4:34), and he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8). He is made unto us righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30), and he is the treasure hid in a field, worth all a man has (Matthew 13:44). In him the house of the righteous holds the peace of God, which passeth all understanding (Philippians 4:7), the fulness of joy in God’s presence (Psalm 16:11) and the exceeding riches of his grace (Ephesians 2:7). God promised a new heart and his own Spirit within (Ezekiel 36:26–27), and through Christ the heart of the foolish is made new. We have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), and as his word dwells in us richly (Colossians 3:16), our own lips learn to disperse knowledge.

These seven verses give us a plain picture of a wise life. A gentle answer can end a quarrel that a harsh word would have started. Healing words are a tree of life to the people who hear them, and knowledge shared freely enriches everyone it reaches. Correction received with humility makes a person prudent, and righteousness fills a house with treasure that trouble cannot spoil. Through it all runs the truth of verse 3, that the LORD sees every word and every deed, the evil and the good, and his sight is both a warning and a comfort. He is gentle and slow to anger, he gives freely the wisdom he asks us to share, and what he asks of our tongues he has shown us in his Son and works in us by his Spirit.